Nevertheless, after two days here in the City That Knows How To Dress Warm For 48-Degree-Weather Baseball, the A's find themselves trailing the Detroit Tigers two games to none. In a best-of-five series, that's a very bad place to be.

Although for the record, after Sunday's 5-4 loss, the visiting clubhouse was still full of plucky words.

"We'd obviously like to be in the opposite situation," said A's pitcher Brett Anderson, who will likely start Game 3 on Tuesday in Oakland. "But this team has responded well all year. All you want is the opportunity to go back and win a game. That's what we have."

In fact, some people might even believe the A's have the Tigers right where they want them, considering how the young Oakland roster spent September bouncing back from several horrible losses to win enough clutch games and clinch the American League West.

I am not one of those counterintuitive believers. I never think it is better to be 0-2 than 2-0, no matter how magical a team you supposedly are. I am mostly wondering what happened to the A's team that swept the Texas Rangers last week.

I am also wondering if, given their druthers, the A's might have preferred to be the lower-seeded team in this A.L. Divisional Series instead of the higher-seeded one with the alleged "home-field advantage." Because if the A's had instead been the lower-seeded team, they would have opened the series in Oakland. Wouldn't that have been more fair, given the A's had more regular-season wins than the Tigers?

Grant Balfour, the A's closer who gave up Sunday's winning run, did have an opinion. All along, he was not excited about allowing a Detroit team with fewer regular-season wins to have the first two bites of the home ballpark apple in the series.

"To come in and have to play them twice here first, I'm not a fan of that," he said.

Bless him for his honesty. But why were the A's in this pickle? Get out your pencil and pad for the next few paragraphs. This takes some explaining.

Usually, in a best-of-five series format, the higher-seeded team plays the first two games at home, with the following two games on the road and Game 5 back at home if necessary -- with travel days scheduled after Game 2 and Game 4.

But just for this October, that format changed. The higher-seeded team in each of the four division series opens on the road for two games, then returns home for the next (potential) three games. It was the trickle-down effect of a decision made late last winter by Major League Baseball to add a second wild-card team, creating the need for an extra play-in game between the two wild cards in each league.

The problem: By that point, the regular season had already been scheduled to end on Oct. 3. And for network TV purposes, the World Series was locked in to start on Oct. 24, after the first two playoff rounds. There was no room for the extra wild-card game.

So the MLB honchos decided to create room. They dropped one travel day from the first round and turned the 2-2-1 format into a 2-3 format with the lower-seeded team at home for the first two games. Next year when the October schedule can be done earlier, the format will revert to 2-2-1.

Got all that? There's no question that of all the higher-seeded teams with an alleged "home-field advantage" this week, the A's received the shortest end of the stick. Not only did they have to open away from home, they did it three time zones away to the east (always tougher than going west) and faced a Sunday 9 a.m. first pitch according to their body clocks.

Before the game, in fact, A's outfielder Jonny Gomes expressed concern about the challenge of gearing up for catching a team bus when the players are usually still in REM sleep.

"If you do the time change, it's a 5:05 a.m. bus and a 4:30 a.m. alarm," Gomes said. "It's tough to call that 'home-field advantage.' "

Here's the thing, however: All of the MLB teams, including the A's, agreed to this year's 2-3 first-round format when it was adopted.

And here's the other thing: In spite of the weirdness, the A's could easily have still won Sunday's game to at least salvage a split here. They took the lead three times and lost the lead all three times.

The last two times were the most ugly, involving a misplayed basket-catch attempt by Crisp and a wild pitch by reliever Ryan Cook. Was it the time-change funk that caused Crisp and Cook to make errors that might have been as mental as physical? Maybe yes. Maybe no. Crisp said he should have made the play. Cook said he just messed up and "yanked" the pitch.

If the A's needed any further motivation, Detroit reliever Al Alburquerque probably gave them some with a bit of over-the-top showmanship in the top of the ninth. Alburquerque fielded a comebacker from Yoenis Cespedes but, before throwing to first base for the final out of the inning, Alburquerque took time to kiss the ball. Silly. But it's more important for the A's, now that they actually have the home-field advantage they are supposed to have, to think in practical terms.

"We get the last at-bats now," Crisp said. "We've swept teams before. We have confidence in ourselves."

Yes, the A's were put in a pickle by the format. Too bad. Championship teams don't whine or gripe in this situation. They win one game. And then another. And then another. That's what the A's must do to make their lost and cold weekend here a distant memory.